Even the great Buddy Rich said you were a good drummer.
Your voice would soar up the charts later. At sixteen, you sang
in tune but lacked vibrato, voice thin as a wafer. You wouldn’t
know it was me, you said. Then suddenly out popped this voice.
Your sound combined innocence and sensuality, declared
Paul Williams. Instantly recognizable, said Phil Ramone.
We, your fans, could name your songs in three notes. To Mike
Curb, your one-time boyfriend, it was a microphone voice,
barely audible in the car, but velvet in front of a microphone.
I hear you as a mellow bell ringing in a canyon.
And the canyon is me.
First appeared in Letters to Karen Carpenter and Other Poems
Richard Allen Taylor, Poet 